


Hands together, eyes closed.

by natika



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Ugh, Worlds 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 11:12:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18234107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natika/pseuds/natika
Summary: This is not how it had been meant to go, Yuzuru muses.





	Hands together, eyes closed.

**Author's Note:**

> I should confess that I don’t actually come here much, so hopefully I have not entirely screwed this up, and I would like to blame my brain which refused to sleep until I had thrown this out at 2am this morning.

This is not how it had been meant to go, Yuzuru muses during the medal ceremony. Not the silver - he had a collection of those - but the break in tradition.

He has to go so long without Shoma that the lack of him in the very place he’s come to count on him being is the cherry on the icing of the cake of disappointment.

Yuzuru howls “Shoooou-maaaa!” into the darkness at the rinkside, and he’s only half-joking. Shoma won’t come out, of course, but Yuzu comforts himself with the thought that if he could have, Shoma would have, for him.

Next time, they had told each other, all the times before this when Yuzuru hadn’t been there. He had only wondered how many next times his ankle would grant him, not whether they would both make it. 

He wonders what he should say at the press conference, weighs it against what he will say.

He wonders if anyone will lend him a shoulder to cry on, for just a second or two more.

—

It’s over an hour since he skated and Shoma has regained enough energy to start being furious with himself. 

He’s never going to get back on the podium again. It’s the beginning of the end. 

He watches the medal ceremony to cheer for Yuzuru; it feels wrong. Shoma on a podium is usually laughing at himself and the absurdity of it all; this all comes over far too serious. He doesn’t fit there. 

Perhaps he never really did.

He slips away, to commit vocal seppuku to a journalist or two, before Yuzuru comes off the ice and they all go after him, instead.

—

They don’t say anything at first when their paths cross; it’s as much as Yuzuru can do to look Shoma in the eyes without his own lip trembling. They lean against a wall in the corridor just around the corner from the cameras and lights and incessant questions. Their shoulders don’t touch but their hands do, littlest fingers brushing together, unwilling to link in the way their arms also hadn’t.

Shoma sighs. “In my next interview I’m going to say I’m quitting skating to become a pro-gamer.”

Yuzuru snorts. “And get carpal tunnel instead of a twisted ankle?”

Shoma doesn’t laugh. His eyes are starry but dull. He murmurs something else but Yuzuru isn’t sure he heard right, and then they’re being called back into the melee again.

Yuzuru doesn’t find out what Shoma has actually been saying in his interviews until he’s in the car and checking his phone. He lets the device fall into his lap, blinking bright in the darkness, and puffs out an exasperated breath.

—

Shoma turns the collar up on his jacket and the volume up on his music, and wonders what had ever possessed him to sing along in the first place. 

He isn’t sure if the other skaters on the bus are staring at him or not, and he thinks he is being rude but he doesn’t much care; he will see most of them tomorrow and that’s another day.

Shoma had been looking forward to retreating into the sanctuary of his room. The problem with this, he soon discovers, is that he has to put up with his own company, and he doesn’t think much of himself just now.

The shower is almost a distraction, but showers have to end. 

He tries faceplanting onto the bed but instead of falling asleep finds the tears falling instead.

—

Yuzuru sends Shoma the clip of him yodeling his name during the photo call. He considers saving it for future use; with a gap of a few days, months or years, it might seem funnier.

Shoma doesn’t reply.

Neither of these actions are abnormal.

Yuzuru doesn’t really know what to do when Shoma’s upset, and besides, he is a little preoccupied also with being upset.

He knocks on Shoma’s door on the way to his room but Shoma doesn’t answer, and Yuzuru supposes he’s probably fallen into the bed and gone straight to sleep.

Yuzuru drifts down the corridor toward his room and then, on a whim, goes to knock on Jason’s door instead. 

By the time he does get back to his room, he’s too tired to even care about turning the lights on. He slinks over to the bed with a put-upon sigh that turns into a yelp when he sits down and discovers the bed is already occupied.

Lit up like a bleary ghost by the light of his phone, Shoma blinks first at the time and then up at Yuzuru.

The silence between them goes on a bit too long, and then Shoma throws back the covers and seems to be trying to get out, so naturally Yuzuru tries to stop that by getting in, and in the end Shoma says “So?” and Yuzuru reaches over and flips the side light on.

Shoma blinks at him, red-eyed and unfocused. Yuzuru looks down at the pillow where there’s a wet patch, then back up at Shoma.

“My hair’s still damp,” Shoma mutters, aggrieved, and punctuates the comment with a sniff. Yuzuru takes Shoma’s face gently between his hands and they stare at each other for a moment before Shoma starts blinking again and Yuzuru leans in and kisses him, half-afraid that if he doesn’t they’ll both start crying again.

What Yuzuru wants to do is link arms with Shoma, has been aching to do it since the beginning of the competition, really, whether on the podium or not, but in bed seems a weird place to try. Shoma normally either jumps him or falls instantly asleep; Yuzuru feels jittery to only be stared at, even sleepily. “I guess this explains why you didn’t answer your door.”

Shoma frowns. “You gave me your other key card.” And then he says, “Oh, so...”

“No, no!” Yuzuru grabs hold of Shoma’s arm. They both freeze. Yuzuru lets go as if he’s been burnt. “You said you didn’t feel any different with a medal,” he hears himself say, petulantly, “So it shouldn’t be any different without one.”

It sounds instantly too vindictive, but Shoma appears to be considering the thought.

“It’s only where I deserve to be, anyway,” he says. 

Yuzuru knows better than to protest that Shoma deserves to have all the golds, all of them and more, that had the competition had been held at the start of the week, placements could easily have been so different. He sums up his feelings with a bleak, “Yeah, right,” that he says in English, just to be even more oblique. “It’s not your fault the system is the way it is,” he adds, unable to leave it all in his head, “Javi will tell you at length.”

“That’s not - I don’t really understand,” Shoma says, and Yuzuru chokes on a laugh that seems too brittle against Shoma still being Shoma, despite the shared misery they are both hiding under, like an anti-comfort blanket.

“It’s a lot of numbers and a lot of swearing. You’ll see tomorrow.”

“Okay,” says Shoma, more wobbly than Yuzu can bear to hear. “I screwed up three quads, I shouldn’t even be -“ His next breath hitches. “Can we not?”

Yuzuru hurriedly concedes, dropping a kiss on Shoma’s forehead. He flips the pillow over and goes to brush his teeth. When he gets back, Shoma has his eyes closed and doesn’t let out more than a startled hum when Yuzuru buries his head into Shoma’s chest and inveigles his arms round his waist.

Shoma cards his fingers gently through Yuzuru’s hair. Yuzuru hums a breath and says carefully, “This is still almost better than a medal.”

“Except an Olympic gold,” Shoma reminds him, indistinctly.

“Mmm,” Yuzuru repeats. “Maybe. Maybe only the second one.”

He had intended to make sure Shoma went to sleep, but he finds himself drifting off first, strung out but still, somehow, floating.

—

Shoma wakes up in the morning to the humming of Haru yo Koi. He doesn’t have to open his eyes to see Yuzuru, sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed, sunk into images. 

It takes a moment for both the lyrics of the song and the reality of yesterday to intertwine and come crashing into his consciousness; Shoma takes a deep, sharp breath. Yuzuru’s humming stops.

Shoma half-hates being paid this much attention even by Yuzuru; just now, however, he’s glad of it, just them being them in the morning after the night before, that their little oasis of stolen time is no mirage. 

But still he wants to say he’s sorry for being so down; he doesn’t want to spend this sliver of precious time together being miserable, otherwise Yuzuru would be perfectly justified in going to find better people to hang out with, but when he cracks his eyes open, to find Yuzuru regarding him, head tilted, eyes tired but never without that familiar, beloved sparkle, all Shoma can really manage is “Ugh.”

Yuzuru’s eyes crinkle; he looks amused. Shoma rubs his eyes and tries to say “Ugh,” again, as it seems to be working, but he is overtaken by a yawn instead.

Yuzuru falls about laughing. Shoma hears the relief, shares in it, and throws a pillow at him.


End file.
